Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging

Debate between Robin Millar and Nia Griffith

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered extended producer responsibility for packaging.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. I share with many, including the Minister, I am sure, a huge concern about the amount of plastic and packaging waste that is never collected or recycled and that ends up in landfill, in our seas or in incinerators, thus polluting our land, sea and air. We are all aware of the hierarchy of waste—reduce, reuse, recycle—and the challenges that it poses. It is vital that we tackle waste and increase recycling, including through legislation and the extended producer responsibility guidance, but the scheme must be well designed so that it incentivises appropriate behaviours. I have every sympathy with the Minister: that is not an easy task.

I can understand, too, if there is some criticism of, or perhaps cynicism about, the concerns voiced by industry, because of course industry is bound to be concerned by any new tax imposed on it. However, there is general support in industry for the “producer pays” principle. Industry wants a system that is fair, and I share its serious concerns about some of the unintended consequences of the scheme. The Food and Drink Federation says the industry has significant concerns that the proposed system will fail to achieve improvements in recycling rates, and is calling on the Department to be more ambitious in its proposals by adopting international best practice from the most successful schemes around the world.

Before addressing more general points, let me share my concerns about how the current proposals will affect Wiltshire Farm Foods, which provides ready-made meals in plastic trays that are covered with a thin polythene film. It delivers those meals to householders who can then put them in their freezers and heat them up when they need them. Customers receive regular deliveries from Wiltshire Farm Foods to their doorsteps. The company saw that as an opportunity for its delivery staff to collect the used trays when they arrive with a fresh delivery. For good measure, it also reuses the cardboard boxes that the trays are carried in.

Wiltshire Farm Foods’ customer base is made up predominantly of a generation who are used to washing and putting out the milk bottles on the doorstep. Their conscientious washing and storing of the used trays enables the company to make the collections. The company does not used a cardboard sleeve, although one is commonly found on similar products. The necessary information is put on the plastic film, which is the only thing left for the customer to dispose of. Wiltshire Farm Foods leaves behind 97% less packaging by weight than other ready meal brands because the customers return the trays.

In late 2021, the company went one step further. It made a significant investment in a world-leading packaging recycling initiative in its factory in Durham. Through its award-winning “boomerang” project, it now takes the used plastic CPET—crystalline polyethylene terephthalate —meal trays and genuinely recycles them by making them into new trays. The composition of the new trays is up to 85% recycled tray material. That should be recognised as a significant achievement because it is much more challenging to recycle plastics than metal and glass, which can be recycled through the use of well-established technologies.

In establishing the facility in Durham, Wiltshire Farm Foods has also onshored the process. It both keeps jobs here and reduces plastic miles. It is genuine closed-loop recycling and an exemplar approach to the recycling and reuse of packaging. It puts the company ahead of the legislation. Can we find a way to refine the proposed legislation to recognise that? We must give credit where credit is due.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

My constituent, Laura Fielding, is a community councillor in Llanfairfechan, and is behind the excellent plastic-free Llanfairfechan scheme. She highlighted my duty, as a consumer, in respect of wrapping and packaging after the point of consumption. Does the hon. Member agree that the same applies to manufacturers and producers? Their responsibility for packaging lies beyond the point of sale, and even beyond the point of use, and extends to its disposal and the consideration of what that means for the packaging afterwards.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

Absolutely. As I understand it, that is the aim of the extended producer responsibility legislation: it will ensure that producers have to take a real interest in that process. However, it must be done in partnership with the industry and in a way that the industry feels part of. The scheme must have buy-in, because it can work only with industry co-operation. We must ensure that it operates fairly and that those who invest extra money to improve their processes get some benefit from doing so.

Last month, in response to a written parliamentary question about whether the charges to be introduced by the extended producer responsibility for packaging will apply only to packaging that enters the consumer waste system, the Minister replied:

“Charges for the management of this waste will apply to all primary and shipment packaging except where producers can evidence that their packaging has been emptied and discarded by a business.”

In response to a different question from the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) regarding how the revised scheme would apply to closed-loop recycling schemes, the Minister replied:

“Packaging that is already commonly collected from households will not be eligible for this offset as this would reduce the efficiency of household collections”.

That is a major problem for a company like Wiltshire Farm Foods. We are effectively equating what it does with plastic trays with plastic waste that enters the waste system.

I am concerned about that statement because, unfortunately, what we know about recyclable waste items that should be collected by local authorities and recycled is not at all encouraging. First, there are all the packaging items that do not go into household recycling boxes or bags but are strewn about the place as litter or put into a non-recyclable street bin. That is hardly a surprise, given that the Environmental Audit Committee report on plastic bottles found that only about half of local authorities provide differentiated street litter bins in order to separate recyclables from black-bag rubbish. Secondly, a householder might wrongly put that packaging into their black-bag rubbish, or in the correct household recycling bag but with unwashed items that drip food content into the bag, so that the whole bag of recyclables is condemned by the local authority and put in with the black-bag rubbish.

Even if recyclable packaging items get into the recycling bag or box correctly, what happens then? We have myriad different regimes run by different local authorities, with varying end destinations for their recyclables. Some 47% of recyclables are sent abroad. What data do we have about the products that they are made into? Too little, it would seem. Too often, we have seen pictures of packaging on foreign shores that can be traced back to the UK, smouldering on the hillside in open landfill or clogging up waterways, as documented by the BBC, Greenpeace and Interpol, and highlighted by the National Audit Office, which reported, putting it mildly, that there is

“a particular risk that some of the material exported overseas is not fully recycled.”

What do we know about the rest? We know that glass is 100% recyclable and can be remelted endlessly without ever reducing its quality, so we would hope the glass collected is fully recycled and made into new items. Plastic packaging, however, is another matter. How much of what local authorities collect as recyclable is actually made into new products? What data does the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have, not just on what is collected and handed on by local authorities, but on what actually happens to it, the efficiencies of the processes that it undergoes, the end products that are produced, and the value for money and for energy use that are achieved through the schemes?

Official estimates show the UK’s plastic packaging waste recycling rate at 47% in 2020 and 44% in 2021. Those estimates have been questioned by various organisations, including the National Audit Office, which expressed concerns about undetected fraud, as well as the concern that I mentioned about what goes abroad. Anyway, the amount would appear to be less than 50%.

We now face a situation in which a company such as Wiltshire Farm Foods has invested in a closed-loop system, collecting plastic trays and using the whole plastic tray to manufacture new ones, yet it will be taxed as if its trays just went into the waste system where, as we have seen, potentially only 50% of the trays would be recycled. The Minister has repeated that in a letter to the company—the problem that the trays will be equated with household waste and cannot be considered as any form of exception or betterment, because technically they could have gone into householders’ recycling waste bags or boxes.

The packaging may be commonly collected from households but, as I have explained, its final destination will vary according to the regimes in place in individual local authorities, and it has a less than 50% chance of being recycled, whereas 100% of the trays collected by Wiltshire Farm Foods will be taken back to Durham and manufactured into new trays. The problem is that firms get no credit for trying to maximise the collection and recycling of their packaging. That is a massive disincentive to make any such investment, whereas they could help to improve our plastic packaging recycling rates, as well as the efficiency and quality of that recycling; otherwise, there is no reason for them to do so.

I do not pretend for one moment that to devise an extended producer responsibility scheme is easy. Such schemes will be dependent on co-operation from industry if they are to work effectively, and it is vital that there is proper consultation and a response to the concerns raised. I understand there is a plan for a blanket introduction of the scheme and then to deal with exceptions or modulated issues, as they are described, afterwards in 2025. Of course, that will penalise the firms that have already started.

Many in the food and drink industry support trying to improve the levels of recycling and understand the importance of the recyclability of packaging and the urge to reduce the use of plastic packaging altogether. In view of the concerns raised by the industry, will the Minister consider pausing the introduction of the EPR scheme and use the time to work productively with manufacturers on their concerns and, in particular, to derive and refine a fair payments regime? Will the EPR rates vary according to the costs of managing different materials, depending on how easily they can be recycled and the final market price they can attract? Will the Minister consider having reduced EPR rates for firms that have invested or are investing in innovative recycling methods? As I have mentioned, the scheme begins in 2024, but the modulated fees whereby the more recyclable a material is, the less the producer pays will not be introduced until 2025. Will the Minister consider introducing the modulated fees at the same time as the main scheme?

How much analysis has the Department done of schemes in operation in other countries? Belgium, Germany and the Canadian province of Ontario are often cited as interesting examples. Does the Minister plan to look further at schemes elsewhere? A number of countries have much greater industry involvement in the running of their schemes, whereas in the proposed UK scheme almost all the necessary tasks to run the scheme will be carried out by the Government. Will the Minister consider greater private sector and industry-body involvement in the schemes? Will she explain how EPR funds will be ringfenced to ensure they are used to improve our recycling infrastructure? Will she take into account the impact of all packaging reforms on producers, and weigh up whether they will have the desired impact without creating an undue burden on them?

On that note, I shall draw my remarks to a close. I thank Wiltshire Farm Foods for showing me its trays and how it recycles them—I was not quite as keen on the minus 20° freezer room that it showed me. I implore the Minister to take that example very seriously, because it has ramifications across the industry for incentivising—or disincentivising—firms so that they do the right thing.

BACKBENCH BUSINESS

Debate between Robin Millar and Nia Griffith

Thursday 30th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I will try to keep my comments brief, as I can see the time racing by. I will make reference to Wales, but the issues are pertinent to all of us. This year, the Welsh Government are introducing a new curriculum that will have fully inclusive LGBT education for all pupils, with no right to withdraw. That is so important. We have all stressed that status is important, as is proper timetabling and training for teachers. We have the protected characteristics of the Equality Act; all of those in the LGBT community should be given respect. It is particularly important for children to learn how to relate and how to cope with peer-group pressure and bullying, particularly homophobic and transphobic bullying.

It is important that materials that present society as it is are part of the curriculum, so that children who come from same-sex couple homes do not feel that they are different or odd, and that means not just in the relationship curriculum but in materials across all subjects. Age appropriateness is important, and governors have the opportunity to look at materials, which is commonly done, and should be practised across the board. Parents should do the same, so that they can see exactly what is being presented. It is really important to remember that we do not live in a vacuum. In our day, it was just whispers in the playground and nasty bullying; now, it is a whole range of stuff on the internet, including pornography, plus massive bullying via the internet, through social media.

I am an ex-secondary school teacher. Children are going to bring things into school that we might not even know the words for, frankly, so teachers need to be prepared. They need to be prepared on how to combat that and how to discuss the issues. We need materials that are positive, down to earth, factual and not sensational.

[Robin Millar]

Will the hon. Lady give way?